Black Women's Bodies as a Site of...

"The sexual history of the United States began at the historical moment when European men met African women in the "Heart of Darkness"-Mother Africa

The African culture was another distraction to Europeans that were unaware of the rhythmic dances and spirituals. The gyrating movement of the "crotch dance" was a celebration of birth for Africans, but as far as Europeans, they were only able to noticed the sexual connotations of the females. The sweat dripping off their bodies is an example of how they were notice for the dancing, rather then the literary meaning of the actual work of art. European men were fascinated by the African women's body and viewed their unusual figures as a sexual interest to them. This was only the beginning of how women were taken advantage of and were sexual desires to European men. The "Heart of Darkness", I believe was a metaphor for African women's' culture and color that started a disturbing movement by force

The black woman as a site of power

I was going to post a clip from the movie The Butler where the main character Cecile's mother played by Mariah Carey gets raped by one of the "masters" in a shed by the cotton fields. Cecile ask his father what was he going to do about, when Cecile's father yelled "hey" to the white man, he responded by pulling out his gun and shooting Cecile's father in the head in front of everyone working the field. As Cecile cried over his dad's dead body an older white lady comes running into the fields and approaches Cecile and says "Stop crying, I'm going to make you a house nigga." Cecil's mother ends up traumatized by the whole ordeal and never speaks again.
This clip shows how the masters used the women to emasculate the men who could not protect their women because they knew they would be beaten or even killed. Black men watched their mothers, daughters and sisters get raped and beaten and had no power to do anything, which lead black women to be strong and independent as they are today.

Black Woman's Body in the Site of...

I chose to post this picture because it is a picture of Sara Baartman. I thought about her because we discussed "gazing" in class and how they whites were amazed at the way that the African women's bodies were. Sara Baartman was sent around for the world people to gaze at her and her uniquely built body. She had an abnormally large bottom and abnormally large genitals. Baartman was treated like an act in a clown or something useless in a museum, and I think this really relates to why black/African women were sexually abused. It amazed the white man that someone could be shaped this way. 

There is no slave after all like a wife

I choose this picture from the film "12 years a slave" because it shows the slave masters wife and his mistress. After reading Hearts of Darkness I thought it was ironic that the slaves masters wife would punish the mistress more cruelly for the transgressions of her husband. Omolade mentioned in her article that they were sisters in bondage. They were both taught to submit to the Husband/Master in all things. All  woman were slaves under patriarchy but the black woman was seen as someone with no human right to control her own body.

Black Women's Bodies as the Site Of...

...being wrong. Black women have fought extremely hard to be accepted in today's society and yet we still aren't fully accepted. In 'Poem about My Rights', Ms. Jordan talks about how a Black woman could be raped and the rapist still wouldn't be charged. She depicts how Black women are resented by all types of people in society, including family, for many different reasons. The wrongness depicted in the poem reminds me of the racial identities in 'The Bluest Eye' by Toni Morrison and how the Shirley Temple cup determined what and who was right and wrong. In the end of Jordan's poem she comes to the realization that it doesn't matter what people say or how the feel about you, it doesn't mean its true. You are right as long as you think, feel and know you are.

‘The Double Lives of Black Women in America’ Jasmine Moore

‘The Double Lives of Black Women in America’  

This excerpt from Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America discusses the stereotypes that black females face today. It expresses all the gifts that women have to share we with the world, yet no one ever appreciates them or recognizes how it is being a women in today's society.  Women have risen above oppression, but are still living double lives. Because of the prevalence of all the stereotypes and all of the sexual misconceptions, black women feel peer pressured to keep the stereotypes and myths alive. These myths and stereotypes starts to become internalized and we become confused to who we are, what we are, or who we believe we can be.



Jasmine Moore

The Black Woman's Body as a Site of...

"...mothers and grandmothers (fathers and grandfathers also) were unmoved by romance or youthful passion and clamped down on their daughters' sexual desires for any but the most stable mates with the firmness of an iron chastity belt." -Barbara Omolade

I thought this quote from "Hearts of Darkness" was very relevant to the unit we're discussing. I've also found this to be true in many households of family and friends even today, including my own. Sex or anything with sexual implications was considered taboo, and to speak on it was forbidden. As a child I wondered how in the world, if we couldn't turn to our elders for information out of simple curiosity, would we ever begin to be functioning adults with healthy relationships? I really do believe the sexual oppression of black females left a heavy stigma in the African-American woman's psyche of promiscuity, lust and desire. And with the Afro-Christian values going hand and hand with this idea of sexual conservatism among young black women, it makes for a even heavier burden. I don't believe that modesty is harmful, but the lack of information and curiosity left unanswered about sex and our bodies can leave young black women looking for answers in all the wrong places.

Shug Avery: Escaping the Rural South

In our reading of the Hearts of Darkness, Omolade describes the Black woman at the beginning of the 20th century being independent, and defying "the restrictions on their womanhood and sexuality" in many ways. From Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple we see this particular face of Black womanhood through Shug Avery who is rumored to have children that she does not take care of with different fathers, who sings and dances "sexually" (for the time period), is lusted after by many men, and seems not to care that the men are drooling so. I think the directors of The Color Purple captured Walker's characterization of her perfectly as she represents exactly the woman Omolade describes,



"These black women lived lives of explicit sexuality and erotic excitement with both men and women. As they broke away from the traditional paternal restraints within the black community, they were castigated for seeming to reflect the truth of the white man's views of black women as whorish and loose. But these 'wild women' did not care, modeling for Southern rural black women a city life full of flashy clothes, fast cars, and access to sophisticated men."



This is dead on as in Walker's later novel, The Temple of My Familiar it is revealed that Miss Celie and Shug Avery live together until their death and make a life with one another as women of this time often abandoned their situations and lived with one another. In the film as well as in the clip, Miss Celie, the "Southern rural black woman" admires and reveres her. Miss Avery is no doubt flashy and is seen as degenerate, especially by her father, who is a pastor at the church  "just down the road" (Lol) from the Juke Joint.

Post #1 (Black Women's Bodies as a Site of...)

I used this quote because it reflects on and contradicts "to an extent" Barbara Omalade's story "Hearts of Darkness." "As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books..." (Maya Angelou). This sentence stands out to me in particular because white women did actually carry a sense of loneliness and rejection. Although white women were not slaves to the degree of black women or the black population, white women did suffer through a form of bondage. White women had to conscientiously tolerate the actions of their husbands in regards to them having forced and/or consensual sex/relationships with their slave women. "White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them" (Maya Angelou). Although this line is true, I believe the statements made can be viewed from a different scope as it relates to the black woman's prospective. Yes, black women worked for white women, and black men "in some cases" desired white women, but the idea that white men adored them can evoke an in-depth discussion considering the reality of how they were initially treated and disrespected. White men viewed black women in a light that was never shined upon on white women. It may be a "stretch" to present this accusation, but it was almost as if white men simply "tolerated" their wive's "white women" in order to deny their private passion/desire for black women. In closing, I would like to add the statement "Black women's bodies as a site of an outlet to reality/sanity!"

Who Is Sara Baartman? Every black woman should know her name

I found this video to be appropriate for this section because it reminds us that the black woman's body has always been a sexual tool that has never been valued to its fullest! Sara Baartman was the first public representation of the demoralization of the black woman's body!! 

-Brittany Dozier

Black women in today’s society are portrayed in both a positive and negative light.  There are three ways you see a black woman in today’s society, she is either being praised for he good looks, wit, strength, and intellect, or being ridiculed by it. You also see black women in music videos, TV, shows or movies being exploited or acting “ratchet” or in an irrational manor. For example in the show Scandal, Olivia Pope who is played by Kerry Washington is portrayed as an intelligent strong black woman who knows how to make things happen no matter how ethical or unethical it may be.  On one episode in particular Olivia Pope’s father emphasizes the fact that even though she has accomplished so much she is just the president’s mistress and not the first lady. There are also reality shows such as Real Housewives of Atlanta, Love and Hip Hop and Scrubbing in, that show the accomplishments of the black women on the show then in the next scene they are arguing or even fighting.   Society is constantly pointing out the flaws of  the black woman even while they are praising her for all the good she has done. 


Ke'Wana Miller

The Cultural Representation of Black Women Today

As we think about the cultural representation of black women in American today, there are many complexities to analyze. Representations in media, film, literature, politics, etc. all provide certain suggestions as to who black women are. Black women have had to work extensively to redefine themselves in a more positive light, yet there is still more work that needs to be done. Ultimately, liberation from years of racial and gendered oppression rests in the freedom to just "be"...to be smart, funny, happy, mad, sexy, strong, or weak...just to be human. A passage from “ A Black Feminist Statement” embodies this very thing:

"Above all else … black women are inherently valuable, our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy.”

-The Combahee River Collective

“The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?”

—

http://mason.gmu.edu/~zschrag/hist120spring05/jeffersonquery14.htm I believe this quote form Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia: Query 14” is a direct reflection of the cultural representation of Black women. In this quote, Jefferson is speaking on both Black men and women; however, I think it speaks volumes when gauging the cultural representation of Black women. Kashian Scrivens